William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. These inspirational William James quotes will change your life.
Best William James Quotes
- “Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.” – William James
- “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James
- “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” – William James
- “Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves… instead of talking to themselves.” – William James
- “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” – William James
- “Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.” – William James
- “The good we do today becomes the happiness of tomorrow.” – William James
- “You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.” – William James
- “There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.” – William James
- “Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.” – William James
- “Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.” – William James
- “If you can change your mind, you can change your life.” – William James
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“If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.” – William James
- “Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.” – William James
- “To kill time is not murder, it’s suicide.” – William James
- “The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.” – William James
- “The education of attention would be an education par excellence” – William James
- “Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.” – William James
- “For the moment, what we attend to is reality.” – William James
- “Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.” – William James
- “Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.” – William James
- “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” – William James
- “A thing is important if anyone think it important.” – William James
- “Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.” – William James
- “There is a voice inside which speaks and says, “This is the real me!” – William James
- “Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.” – William James
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“The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.” – William James
- “There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.” – William James
- “This life is worth living, we can say since it is what we make it.” – William James
- “Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.” – William James
- “Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one” – William James
- “The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.” – William James
- “Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.” – William James
- “A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.” – William James
- “Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.” – William James
- “Effort is a measure of a Man.” – William James
- “If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.” – William James
- “The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.” – William James
- “The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.” – William James
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“To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.” – William James
- “An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.” – William James
- “A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith’s usual result.” – William James
- “In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.” – William James
- “If it works, it’s true.” – William James
- “Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.” – William James
- “Time itself comes in drops.” – William James
- “Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.” – William James
- “Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.” – William James
- “Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.” – William James
- “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.” – William James
